I · The Farm

Eighty and a half acres of steep ground.

A former tobacco farm in Marshall, in the hills above the French Broad.

The farm once grew tobacco. Most of the land is steep, and much of it is wooded, with springs coming out of the hillsides.

Since 2023 it has been farmed by organic and biodynamic methods. It is not certified. The methods are kept because of what they do to the ground, and the ground is slow to answer.

Goats and Shetland sheep work the open slopes. Chickens follow them. The first acre of vineyard is terraced and goes into the ground in the spring of 2027.

Young vines on a grassy slope, a line of hardwoods below, and low cloud lying in the valleys of the blue ridges beyond.
Young vines, and cloud in the hollows.
Place
Marshall, Madison County, North Carolina
Ground
80.5 acres, once in tobacco
Methods
Organic and biodynamic since 2023, not certified
Animals
Goats, Shetland sheep, chickens
Vines
The first acre, planted spring 2027
A white ram with heavy curled horns and a woolly ewe, heads down together in a bed of hay.
Ram and ewe, at the hay.

More to come.

Follow the farm in Field Notes